BEAUMARCHAIS 


AND 


"THE  LOST  MILLION." 


WITH  THE  COMPLIMENTS  OF 


C.  J.   STILLE, 

2201  ST.  JAMES  PLACE, 

PHILADELPHIA, 


BY 


CHARLES    J.    STILLE. 


BEAUMARCHAIS 


AND 


"THE  LOST  MILLION." 


A  CHAPTER  OF  THE  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 
AMERICAN  REVOLUTION. 


BY 


CHARLES    J.    STILLE. 


SUSANNE. 
Quant  2t  la  politique? 

BEGEARRS. 

Ah !  c'est  Part  de  creer  des  faits,  les  £venemens 
et  les  hommes;  1'interet  est  son  but;  1'intrigue  son 
moyen;  toujours  sobre  de  v£rit£s,  ses  vastes  et 
riches  conceptions  sont  un  prisme  qui  eblouit;  aussi 
profonde  que  1'Etna,  elle  brule  et  gronde  longtemps 
avant  d'eclater  au-dehors,  mais  alors  rien  ne  lui 
r6siste ;  elle  exige  de  hauts  talens ;  le  scrupule  seul 
lui  peut  nuire;  c'est  le  secret  des  negociateurs. — 

La  Mere  Coupable  : 

Drame  par  Beaumarchais, 

Acte  IV.,  Scene  IV. 


BE  A  UM ARCH  A  IS 


AND 


"THE  LOST  MILLION: 


i. 

HERE  are  few  persons  in  modern  times  whose 
career  has  given  rise  to  criticism  of  such  an  op 
posite  character  as  that  of  Beaumarchais.  He 
was,  as  all  agree,  a  very  considerable  personage  in  France 
in  the  last  quarter  of  the  eighteenth  century,  but  how  far  he 
was  a  charlatan,  and  how  far  in  his  various  enterprises  he 
was  a  true  and  honest  man,  it  is  not  easy  to  decide.  He 
was  the  greatest  dramatic  author  of  his  day,  in  the  sense  that 
he  wrote  a  comedy  (Le  Mariage  de  Figaro)  which  did  more  to 


Beaumarchais 


open  men's  eyes  to  the  monstrous  evils  of  the  government 
under  which  they  lived  than  any  other  literary  work  of  the 
time  ;  he  was,  besides,  a  secret  diplomatic  agent  employed  by 
two  Kings  of  France  in  negotiations  of  the  utmost  delicacy, 
which,  in  order  that  they  might  reach  a  successful  issue,  re 
quired  that  absolute  confidence  and  trust  should  be  placed 
in  his  secrecy  and  honor  (a  trust  which,  we  ought  to  say, 
seems  never  to  have  been  misplaced).  He  was  the  hero  of 
many  lawsuits,  which,  owing  to  their  connection  with  the 
general  politics  of  the  time,  and  to  the  brilliant  way  he 
managed  them,  gave  him  a  European  reputation  ;  yet  he  had 
been  condemned  by  the  Parlement  de  Paris  to  an  infamous 
punishment  for  having  produced  in  one  of  these  lawsuits  a 
receipt  or  discharge  of  a  debt  which  that  Court  had  pro 
nounced  suppositious,  while  by  his  keen  satire  of  existing 
abuses  he  was  thought  by  not  a  few,  including  the  King,  to 
be  really  undermining  the  foundations  of  the  throne  which 
he  was  professing  to  serve.  To  many  he  seems  only  a  vain, 
ever  active,  unscrupulous  intriguer,  employing  without  hesi 
tation  lying  and  mystification  whenever  necessary  to  accom 
plish  his  object,  which  is  assumed  to  have  always  been  his  self- 
advancement,  and  the  gratification  of  an  inordinate  vanity 
for  making  himself  talked  of.  By  others,  he  is  thought 
chiefly  responsible  for  the  success  of  two  revolutions, — 
that  of  France,  by  holding  up  in  the  full  light  of  day  before 
the  average  Frenchman  monstrous  evils  which  had  never 
before  been  so  vividly  portrayed,  and  that  of  America,  by  the 
energy  which  he  exhibited  in  supplying  us  with  arms  and 


and  "The  Lost  Million" 


clothing  for  an  army  of  twenty-five  thousand  men,  supplies 
which,  we  must  admit,  were  essential  to  our  military  success 
against  Great  Britain.  In  France,  in  the  highly  feverish 
condition  of  things  which  existed  just  before  the  outbreak 
of  the  Revolution,  he  was  undoubtedly  one  of  the  foremost 
leaders  of  public  opinion,  his  denunciation  of  practical 
abuses,  which  every  one  recognized,  reaching  classes  of 
the  people  wholly  unaffected  by  the  humanitarian  doctrines 
of  Diderot  and  Rousseau  ;  and  for  his  aid  to  America  in  the 
hour  of  her  sorest  need,  whatever  may  have  been  his  motive, 
or  however  questionable  may  have  been  some  of  his  proceed 
ings,  we  should  never  cease  to  be  profoundly  grateful.  To 
his  special  power  as  a  literary  man  in  France  at  this  time  no 
one  is  a  more  competent  witness  than  M.  Taine,  and  he  says, 
"  It  was  necessary  for  the  promoters  of  the  Revolution  to  en 
force  the  doctrine  of  the  philosophers  with  brilliancy,  with 
wit,  and  with  a  certain  gayety  of  style  and  manner  which 
would  create  public  scandal.  This  Beaumarchais  did  in  Le 
Mariage  de  Figaro.  He  exhibited  a  faithful  picture  of  the 
ancien  regime  before  the  chiefs  of  the  ancien  regime.  He 
used  the  stage  as  the  place  where  a  political  and  social  satire 
would  be  most  effective.  He  fixed  publicly  on  each  abuse 
a  placard  which  told  of  its  peculiar  infamy.  In  short,  he  por 
trayed  by  a  few  bold  touches  a  living  picture,  reproducing 
in  the  most  telling  way  the  complaints  of  the  philosophers 
against  the  state  prisons,  against  the  censorship  of  the  press, 
against  the  scandalous  sale  of  public  offices,  against  the 
privileges  of  birth  and  rank,  against  the  arbitrary  power 


Beaumarchais 


of  the  ministers,  and  against  the  incapacity  of  the  men  who 
then  held  office."     (L  Ancien  Regime,  360.) 

To  this  man  our  forefathers  were  told  in  the  early  days 
of  the  Revolution  to  look  for  succor  and  safety.  The  more 
they  heard  about  him  the  more  completely  did  his  position 
seem  a  mystery  and  riddle  to  them.  To  their  sober  and 
practical  minds  it  was  hard  to  conceive  of  him  as  a  benefi 
cent  fairy  who,  unsolicited,  was  willing  to  send  us  millions 
of  dollars'  worth  of  the  supplies  we  most  needed  to  carry 
on  the  war,  and  who,  as  they  were  told  by  Arthur  Lee,  the 
earliest  American  commissioner  in  Europe,  never  suggested 
that  he  was  to  be  paid  for  them,  but  merely  hinted  that  it 
would  be  well  for  Congress  to  make  him  certain  shipments  of 
tobacco  to  conceal  his  transactions  from  the  English.  The 
Americans  had  no  experience  of  merchants  who  carried  on 
business  in  this  way.  It  was  not  their  interest,  however,  to 
inquire  too  closely  into  the  source  from  which  these  supplies 
came,  and  they  were  inclined  to  settle  down  into  the  belief 
that  Beaumarchais  was  a  convenient prete-nom  for  the  French 
government,  which  had  so  many  reasons  for  encouraging  us 
in  our  resistance,  and  so  many  more  to  conceal  the  aid  it  was 
giving  us  in  our  struggle  with  Great  Britain.  Whatever  the 
Secret  Committee  or  the  Committee  on  Commerce  of  the 
old  Congress  may  have  thought  or  suspected,  they  did  not, 
so  long  as  the  military  supplies  were  provided  in  reasonable 
abundance,  inquire  with  too  much  curiosity  into  their  source. 
They  accepted  them  with  thankfulness,  not  doubting  that 
they  would  discover  in  due  time  to  whom  they  were  indebted 


and  ' '  The  Lost  Million. ' : 


for  them.  In  the  mean  time  they  chose  to  regard  them  as 
gifts  from  the  King  of  France.  For  more  than  two  years 
and  a  half  they  were  under  this  pleasant  delusion.  They  v 
were  confirmed  in  the  opinion  expressed  by  Arthur  Lee, 
by  letters  written  by  the  American  Commissioners  in  Paris, 
who  told  the  Secret  Committee  in  October,  1777,  that  they 
had  been  assured  that  these  supplies  were  intended  as  don 
gratuit,  or  a  voluntary  gift,  on  the  part  of  the  French  gov 
ernment.  Of  course,  under  these  circumstances,  they  made 
no  effort  to  pay  for  them.  Beaumarchais,  under  the  name 
of  Roderigue  Hortalez  &  Co.,  tired  of  waiting  for  remit 
tances  from  this  country,  sent  an  agent  here  in  the  begin 
ning  of  the  year  1778,  who,  in  a  tone  very  different  from  the 
high-flown  rhetoric  of  his  master's  letters,  demanded  full  pay 
ment  for  all  the  supplies  which  had  been  sent.  This  demand 
dispelled  all  the  dreams  about  don  gratuit  on  the  part  of 
France.  After  ascertaining  from  the  French  government 
that  Beaumarchais,  under  the  name  of  Hortalez  &  Co.,  was 
really  the  man  they  had  been  dealing  with,  Congress,  in 
January,  1779,  made  a  partial  settlement  with  his  agent,  and 
directed  their  President  to  write  a  letter  of  thanks  and  of 
apology  to  Beaumarchais  for  their  delay  in  paying  him.  He 
received  a  large  sum  on  account  at  that  time,  but  a  final  set 
tlement  was  delayed  until  further  information  from  France/ 
reached  them.  While  the  liquidation  was  slowly  going  on, 
the  French  government,  in  1781,  entered  into  a  treaty  with 
our  Commissioners  in  Paris,  by  which  it  agreed  to  loan  to  the 
United  States  a  certain  sum  of  money.  In  the  preamble  to 


Beaumarchais 


this  treaty  there  was  a  recapitulation  of  the  sums  paid  by  the 
French  government  for  our  use  and  account,  but  regarded 
as  voluntary  gifts,  prior  to  the  treaty  of  alliance  in  1778, 
and  an  explicit  statement  was  made  that  these  sums,  amount 
ing  to  three  millions  of  livres,  were  to  be  considered  as  an  ab 
solute  orift  from  the  French  Kino;  to  us,  and  we  were  released 

o  o 

m  all  liability  therefor.  It  was  discovered  some  time  after 
wards  that  our  Commissioners  had  been  paid  by  the  French 
government  not  three  millions,  but  two  millions,  prior  to  the 
treaty.  Inquiry  was,  of  course,  made  in  France  as  to  the 
person  to  whom  this  million  had  been  paid.  That  govern 
ment,  for  reasons  which  will  be  explained  hereafter,  refused 
to  give  the  name  of  the  person  to  whom  payment  had  been 
made,  but  it  gave  the  date  of  the  payment,  June  10,  1776. 
The  accounting  officers  of  the  Treasury  believed  that  this 
particular  million  was  a  portion  of  the  secret  service  money 
paid  by  France  to  Beaumarchais  for  our  use  on  the  loth  June, 
1776,  and  that  it  had  been  expended  in  the  purchase  of  sup 
plies  sent  us,  and  as  this  million  had  subsequently  been 
made  by  the  action  of  the  French  government  a  present  to 
us,  they  felt  that  Beaumarchais  should  not  be  paid  twice  for 
the  same  service,  and  thus  they  charged  it  against  him  in  the 
settlement  of  his  claim.  Beaumarchais  protested  against 
such  a  decision.  A  controversy  ensued,  which  lasted  until 
1835,  in  which  the  questions  were,  Whence  came  this 
"  lost  million,"  and  what  had  become  of  it,  by  whom  had  it 
been  used,  and  for  what  purpose  ?  questions  between  our 
selves  and  Beaumarchais  in  the  first  instance,  and  afterwards 


and  ' l  The  Lost  Million. ' 


between  the  French  government  and  ours,  which  urged  in  his 
name  his  claim  upon  us.  These  questions  involved  inter 
minable  discussions  about  the  rights  and  obligations  which 
arose  out  of  our  secret  diplomatic  arrangements  with  France 
during  the  Revolution ;  they  were  the  subject  of  many  con 
flicting  Reports  from  Committees  of  Congress  for  more  than 
fifty  years,  two  Committees  on  Claims,  two  Select  Commit 
tees,  and  two  Attorneys-General  recommending  the  payment 
of  the  claim,  while  two  Committees  on  Claims  and  one  Select 
Committee  reported  against  its  payment. 

It  seems  to  me  important  for  the  good  name  of  the 
country  as  well  as  for  the  truth  of  history  that  these  trans 
actions  and  their  motives  should  be  carefully  examined  and 
the  fullest  possible  light  thrown  upon  them.  As  a  matter 
of  curiosity  it  is  certainly  worth  knowing  what  became  of 
this  lost  million,  the  origin  and  destiny  of  which  were  so  care 
fully  covered  up  by  the  French  government.  But  the  in 
terest  in  such  a  discussion  is  of  a  wider  and  more  permanent 
kind,  for  it  embraces  not  merely  a  view  of  the  manner  in 
which  the  military  supplies  essential  to  the  prosecution  of 
the  war  of  the  Revolution  were  obtained,  but  how  far  they 
were  voluntary  gifts  bestowed  upon  us  by  France  to  secure 
her  own  ends  in  our  quarrel,  and  how  far  we  showed  our 
selves  duly  grateful  for  them.  Our  government  has  been 
branded  with  something  worse  than  ingratitude — with  dis 
honesty — in  its  persistent  refusal  to  pay  Beaumarchais  this 
"lost  million."  Such  an  impression  was  doubtless  made  on 
the  French  government  by  our  course,  judging  from  the 


io  Beaumarchais 


voluminous  correspondence  which  was  kept  up  for  so  many 
years  between  that  government  and  our  own,  and  our  con 
duct  was  long  spoken  of  as  an  illustration  of  the  old  saying 
that  Republics  were  not  only  ungrateful,  but  shifty  and 
tricky  in  their  dealings.  Such  is  the  conclusion  openly 
avowed  by  M.  Louis  de  Lomenie,  the  author  of  an  elaborate 
life  of  Beaumarchais,  published  in  1856  ;  a  book  looked  upon 
in  France  as  of  such  high  literary  merit  that  it  secured  for 
its  author  a  chair  in  the  French  Academy.  The  whole  story, 
which  for  many  years  figured  among  the  proceedings  of 
Congress  as  the  most  sensational  in  its  details  of  any  which 
had  ever  formed  the  basis  of  a  claim  before  that  body,  has 
strangely  slipped  out  of  the  memory  of  the  present  genera 
tion,  and  it  seems  to  me  worth  while  now  to  retrace  some 
of  its  principal  features.  There  were  always  doubts,  no 
doubt  honestly  entertained  by  the  majority  of  Congress, 
against  the  validity  of  the  claim,  and  these  doubts,  it  appears 
to  me,  have  been  strengthened,  or,  as  I  should  rather  say, 
have  been  proved  to  be  well  founded,  by  facts  which  have 
come  to  light  since  the  subject  passed  beyond  its  jurisdiction 
in  1835. 

Usually  it  is  dull  work  plodding  through  the  details  of  a 
claim  for  the  payment  of  money  made  against  the  govern 
ment.  But  this  is  one  sui  generis.  To  understand  it  we 
must  know  something  of  the  inner  and  more  secret  history 
of  the  American  Revolution,  we  must  weigh  carefully  the 
reasons  for  the  peculiar  relations  of  England  and  France 
towards  each  other  prior  to  the  Treaty  of  Alliance  with  us 


and  ' '  The  Lost  Million. "  1 1 

in  1778,  we  must  understand  just  why  and  how  France  was 
willing  to  help  us,  and  how  essential  it  was  that  any  aid 
given  by  her  should  be  kept  as  far  as  it  was  possible  from 
the  knowledge  of  England.  We  must  know  something  too 
of  what  constituted  the  secret  diplomatic  agent  of  those 
days,  how  one  of  his  chief  functions  was  to  lie  in  the  most 
barefaced  manner  if  there  seemed  to  be  any  danger  of  com 
promising  his  government  by  telling  the  truth,  and  how  he 
ran  the  risk  at  any  moment  of  being  disavowed  by  those  who 
employed  him  if  it  suited  their  purpose.  All  these  things 
are  familiar  enough  to  those  who  study  the  tortuous  ways 
of  that  department  of  government  administration  called 
the  secret  service,  but  a  drama  of  this  kind  with  Beau- 
marchais  acting  the  principal  part  has  a  special  and  peculiar 
interest  of  its  own,  combining  all  the  attractiveness,  bril 
liancy,  and  rapid  changes  of  scene  so  striking  in  his  own 
comedies.  The  whole  story,  indeed,  is  one  of  the  most  cu 
rious  romances  of  modern  diplomacy.  The  nature  of  the 
service  that  was  rendered  to  us,  and  the  motives  which 
prompted  it,  the  extraordinary  pains  which  were  taken  to 
enable  France  to  disavow  any  connection  with  it,  and  es 
pecially  the  character  and  the  career  of  the  man  who  was 
selected  as  the  agent  in  this  business,  are  well  worth  the 
study  of  those  who  would  understand  an  important  chapter 
in  our  early  history.  Let  us  see  in  the  first  place  what  was 
the  condition  of  this  country  when  our  fathers  first  sought 
aid  in  Europe ;  what  they  most  needed,  and  how  they  set 
about  procuring  it. 


1 2  Bcaumar chats 


II. 

At  an  early  period  of  the  Revolution  the  attention  of  the 
Continental  Congress  was  drawn  towards  the  possibility  of 
securing  foreign  aid  and  intervention.  What  we  needed 
most  was  a  supply  of  arms,  and  especially  of  powder  for 
cannon,  to  enable  us  to  place  our  armies  in  the  field  in  a 
proper  condition  and  efficient  state.  We  were  almost  with 
out  any  means  of  supplying  their  indispensable  needs,  as  is 
proved  by  the  great  scarcity  of  weapons  and  the  extreme 
difficulty  of  procuring  powder  for  cannon,  which  were  points 
of  weakness  conspicuous  in  our  early  battles.  So  far  as  I 
can  discover,  cannon-powder  was  not  manufactured  at  that 
time  in  this  country.  We  were  not  only  destitute  of  the 
weapons  with  which  our  enemies  were  armed,  but  we  had 
very  limited  means  of  clothing  our  soldiers,  and  in  look 
ing  forward  to  a  long  war  the  authorities  must  have  been 
sorely  puzzled  to -determine  how  these  most  necessary  wants 
should  be  supplied.  On  the  2Qth  November,  1775,  a  com- 
mittee  of  Congress,  afterwards  called  the  Secret  Committee, 
consisting  of  Mr.  Harrison,  Dr.  Franklin,  Mr.  Johnson,  Mr. 
Dickinson,  and  Mr.  Jay,  was  appointed,  and  directed  to  enter 
into  correspondence  with  persons  of  influence  in  Europe 
supposed  to  be  friendly  to  the  American  cause.  What  was 
chiefly  relied  upon  at  that  time  in  order  to  secure  the  aid 
and  comfort  which  we  needed  was  the  universal  jealousy  of 
Great  Britain  existing  on  the  Continent,  where  the  com 
plaint  was  general  that  she  had  abused  the  victory  secured 


and  ' '  The  Lost  Million. "  13 

by  the  treaty  of  1763  to  monopolize  the  commerce  of  the 
world,  and  especially  that  with  America.  This  feeling,  of 
course,  was  more  intense  in  France  than  anywhere  else. 
She  had  suffered  not  only  great  positive  loss  by  the  destruc 
tion  of  her  commerce  and  by  being  forced  to  give  up  by  the 
treaty  Canada  and  her  vast  possessions  in  India  and  the 
West  Indies,  but  besides  all  this  there  was  a  deep  feeling  of 
national  humiliation, — how  strong  none  but  a  Frenchman 
could  know,  when  he  recalled  how  her  armies  had  been 
vanquished  by  those  of  her  rival  in  both  worlds.  Dr. 
Franklin,  fully  aware  of  this  irritability  of  national  feeling, 
began  the  correspondence  by  writing  to  a  Frenchman,  a 
friend  of  his,  then  residing  in  Holland,  whom  he  knew  to  be 
a  friend  of  the  struggling  colonists.  In  this  letter  he  hinted 
that  possibly  some  of  the  European  powers  might  find  it  to 
their  advantage  to  enter  into  an  alliance  with  us  for  the 
benefit  to  be  derived  from  our  commerce,  which,  he  stated, 
amounted  before  the  war  to  nearly  seven  millions  sterling, 
and  "  which  must  ultimately  increase,  as  our  population 
grows  rapidly."  It  will  be  observed  as  a  significant  fact 
that  in  these  first  overtures  for  alliance  no  appeal  whatever 
was  made  to  any  sympathy  with  the  rights  of  man,  in  favor 
of  which  nearly  all  educated  Europe  was  then  declaiming, 
and  for  the  maintenance  of  which  we  afterwards  asserted 
in  the  Declaration  of  Independence  we  were  contending, 
but  only  to  the  common  notion  of  self-interest  and  to  the 
practical  and  substantial  advantages  of  the  commerce  which 
foreign  nations  would  gain  by  entering  into  an  alliance  with 


Bcaumarchais 


us.  It  is  to  be  remembered  that  throughout  the  Revolu 
tion  these,  and  these  only,  were  the  inducements  we  offered 
to  secure  either  recognition  or  material  aid  from  foreign 
powers. 

On  the  second  of  March,  1776,  the  Secret  Committee 
took  a  further  step.  They  appointed  Mr.  Silas  Deane,  then 
a  member  of  Congress  from  Connecticut,  the  commercial 
and  political  agent  of  the  United  States  in  Europe.  He  was 

x  furnished  with  letters  to  Dr.  Franklin's  friends  in  France, 
M.  Le  Ray  de  Chaumont  and  Dr.  Dubourg,  both  of  whom 

v  held  high  positions  at  that  time  as  men  of  science  in  Paris. 
Mr.  Deane  was  told  by  his  instructions  that  his  political 
business  was  to  sound  M.  de  Vergennes,  the  foreign  min 
ister,  as  to  the  possibility  of  procuring  aid  in  the  way  of 
supplies  and  a  loan  for  us  in  France ;  and  if  he  found  him 
favorable,  he  was  further  to  hint  as  to  the  conditions  of  a 
future  alliance.  His  commercial  business  was  to  secure 
permission  for  the  purchase  in  France  of  military  supplies 
of  all  kinds  needed  for  an  army  of  twenty-five  thousand  men. 
Mr.  Deane  was  presented  by  Dr.  Dubourg  to  M.  de  Ver 
gennes  in  July,  1776.  He  was  received  kindly  by  the  min 
ister,  but  was  told  that  recognition  and  alliance  were  subjects 
in  "  the  womb  of  time,"  and  not  then  to  be  discussed.  As  to 
permission  to  purchase  military  supplies  in  France,  he  was 
told  plainly  that  it  could  not  be  given,  because  it  would 
compromise  the  obligations  of  neutrality  which  France 
was  forced  to  preserve  in  our  contest  with  Great  Britain. 
He  was  informed,  however,  significantly,  that  although  the 


and  "The  Lost  Million. "  15 

government,  as  such,  could  do  nothing,  there  was  a  certain 
M.  de  Beaumarchais,  a  merchant,  who  might  possibly  aid  the 
American  aofent  to  transact  his  business  in  France.  In  the 

o 

mean  time  he  was  promised  freedom  from  molestation  while 
engaged  in  any  transactions  concerning  the  purchase  of  sup 
plies  which  did  not  compromise  French  neutrality.  The 
truth  is  that  at  this  time  the  French  government  was  much 

o 

further  on  the  road  towards  helping  the  Americans  than 
Deane  suspected,  or  than  was  indeed  known  to  any  one  at 
that  time  outside  the  inner  circle  of  the  King's  Court.  It 
now  appears  that  Turgot,*  the  French  Controller-General, 
who  had  as  early  as  1767  been  the  intimate  friend  of  Dr. 
Franklin,  proposed  in  April,  1776,  in  a  memoir  to  the  King, 
a  plan  for  the  secret  intervention  of  the  government  in  favor 
of  the  Colonies,  which  in  its  main  features  was  the  one  finally 
adopted,  and  the  invention  of  which,  by  the  way,  Beaumar 
chais  always  claimed  as  his  own.  Turgot  in  his  secret  me 
moir  proposes  that  every  facility  should  be  given  to  the 
Colonies  to  enable  them  to  procure  in  the  way  of  commerce 
such  articles  as  they  required,  and  even  the  money  which  they 
needed,  France  taking  care  not  to  violate  its  neutrality  by 
giving  them  succor  directly  or  openly.  Doubtless  this  plan 
was  in  the  mind  of  M.  de  Vergennes  when  Deane  was  re 
ferred  by  him  for  further  information  to  Beaumarchais. 

From  this  time  forth  Beaumarchais  becomes  the  principal 

*  To  him  has  been  ascribed  the  famous  line  descriptive  of  Franklin, 
Eripuit  cczlo  fulmen,  sceptrumque  tyrannis. 


1 6  Beaumarchais 


actor  in  the  drama.  This  intensely  restless  gentleman 
was  not  satisfied  to  wait  until  his  government  had  decided 
when  and  how  to  act,  but  was  constant  and  profuse  in  his 
advice  to  the  King  and  to  De  Vergennes  in  regard  to  the 
plan  that  should  be  adopted  to  succor  us  even  in  its  minutest 
details.  His  letters,  if  one  did  not  know  his  reputation  in 
France  at  that  time  of  ^fanfaron  (in  which  capacity  he  was 
permitted  unusual  license  in  his  style  of  writing),  seem  like 
an  attempt  to  usurp  the  proper  functions  of  the  heads  of 
the  government.  On  the  2Qth  February,  1776,  he  sends  a 
memoir  to  the  King,  in  which  he  tells  him,  among  other 
things, — 

"We  have  now  reached  the  crisis,  and  I  am  obliged  to 
inform  your  Majesty  that  the  preservation  of  our  posses 
sions  in  America,  as  well  as  the  peace  which  your  Majesty 
so  earnestly  desires  to  maintain,  is  dependent  upon  one 
thing,  viz.,  succor  to  the  Americans" 

After  hinting  that  the  Americans  if  not  succored  may 
conclude  peace  with  Great  Britain,  a  result  which,  he  tells 
the  King,  would  be  disastrous  to  France,  he  goes  on  to 
speak  of  the  proposition  which  had  been  made  to  him  as 
agent  in  London  by  Arthur  Lee,  whom  he  calls  the  secret 
deputy  of  Congress. 

"We  offer  to  France,"  he  makes  Arthur  Lee  say,  "in 
return  for  her  secret  aid,  a  secret  treaty  of  commerce, 
which  will  enable  her  to  enjoy  during  a  certain  number  of 
years  all  the  profit  of  that  commerce  which  has  enriched 


and  ' '  The  Lost  Million. "  17 

England  for  a  hundred  years ;  and,  besides,  we  agree  to 
guarantee  the  possession  of  the  French  colonies  as  far  as 
we  are  able." 

It  is  very  doubtful  whether  Arthur  Lee  ever  made  such 
propositions.  It  is  certain  that  he  never  had  any  authority 
to  do  so.  In  another  letter  to  the  King,  which  is  probably 
the  one  referred  to  in  the  previous  memoir  as  having  been 
written  "  three  months  ago,"  Beaumarchais  writes, — 

"  The  constant  effort  should  be  to  convince  the  Congress 
that,  while  your  Majesty  cannot  in  any  way  interest  himself 
in  its  affairs,  a  company  has  been  formed  with  the  gen 
erous  intention  of  turning  over  to  the  prudent  management 
of  a  faithful  agent  a  large  sum  of  money,  by  which  the 
Americans  shall  receive  constant  succor,  for  which  they  will 
pay  by  shipments  of  tobacco.  Your  Majesty  will  then  begin 
by  placing  a  million  at  the  disposal  of  your  agent,  who  will 
assume  the  name  of  Roderigue  Hortalez  &  Cie.  One-half 
of  this  money  shall  be  exchanged  into  moidores  (a  Portuguese 
coin),  and  sent  to  America  as  a  basis  for  their  paper  money ; 
the  other  half  shall  be  expended  in  the  purchase  of  gun 
powder.  It  is  the  hope  of  Hortalez  &  Cie.  that  they  may 
be  able  to  buy  with  this  money  from  the  Registers  of  your 
Majesty's  powder  and  saltpetre  depots  all  the  powder  they 
need  at  from  four  to  six  sols  a  pound,  which  powder  Hor 
talez  &  Cie.  will  sell  to  the  Americans  at  twenty  sols  a 
pound." 

He  then  goes  on  to  explain  that  this  plan  is  not  pro 
posed  in  order  that  Beaumarchais  shall  receive  these  large 
profits,  but  that  they  may  constitute  a  fund  which  will  enable 


1 8  B  eaumarchais 


him  to  supply  the  Americans  with  powder  at  all  times.  He 
then  proceeds  to  show  that  these  profits  will  increase  in  a 
geometrical  ratio,  and  that  in  a  few  years  the  Americans 
will  be  bound  to  France  by  a  debt  of  nine  millions  of  livres. 
His  mode  of  raising  the  money  for  this  operation  is  very 
characteristic,  and  savors  rather  of  the  tastes  and  habits  of 
the  dramatist  than  of  those  of  the  merchant.  He  tells  the 
King  — 

"It  is  pleasant  to  think  that  we  may  succor  the  Ameri 
cans  with  English  money.  This  is  easily  done.  Let  an 
order  be  issued  that  all  the  foreign  horses  and  carriages 
which  arrive  in  any  of  your  seaports  shall  be  taxed  with  the 
same  duty  which  ours  pay  in  England.  If  you  adopt  this 
plan  you  need  give  yourself  no  further  trouble  about  finding 
funds  for  Hortalez  &  Cie." 

He  goes  on  to  say, — 

"  The  adoption  of  this  plan  in  procuring  for  your  Majesty 
the  sweet  pleasure  of  not  employing  any  other  money  to  aid 

Americans  than  such  as  this  duty  will  draw  from  England 
herself  has  something  spicy  in  it,  which  seems  to  me  like 
sowing  flowers  upon  the  dry  soil  of  the  commercial  affairs 
of  Hortalez  &  Cie."* 

*  This  letter,  which  is  of  great  historical  value,  as  showing  not  merely 
the  nature  of  the  "disinterested  services"  of  France  during  the  Revolu 
tion,  but  also  the  plan  and  motives  of  Beaumarchais  when  he  became  the 
agent,  was  first  published  in  the  second  volume  of  the  American  Histori 
cal  Magazine,  p.  666.  Previously  it  was  suppressed,  perhaps  because  too 
characteristic. 


and  "The  Lost  Million. "  19 


III. 

How  did  it  happen,  then,  that  a  man  such  as  we  conceive 
Beaumarchais  to  have  been,  vain,  boastful,  never  satisfied 
unless  he  was  gratifying  his  love  of  notoriety,  could  have 
been  employed  by  the  French  government  in  negotiations 
which  required  the  utmost  discretion  and  secrecy,  and  that 
he  should  have  been  intrusted  with  vast  sums  of  money  for 
that  purpose?  How  could  a  man  who  had  given  such  evi 
dence  of  his  inaptitude  for  managing  commercial  affairs  that, 
as  Dr.  Dubourg  told  M.  de  Vergennes  in  1776,  "  no  merchant 
or  manufacturer  in  France  could  be  found  who  would  not 
hesitate  to  engage  in  the  smallest  commercial  business  with 
him," — how  did  he  become  the  trusted  agent  of  the  French 
government  in  this  delicate  and  difficult  business  ?  To  tell 
the  truth,  this  is  not  the  least  of  the  mysteries  in  his  connec 
tion  with  our  affairs,  and  possibly  some  light  may  be  thrown 
upon  it  by  his  previous  history. 

Beaumarchais  was  a  man  of  obscure  origin.  His  true 
name  was  Caron,  and  he  assumed  that  of  Beaumarchais 
from  a  small  estate  which  belonged  to  his  first  wife.  His 
father  was  a  watchmaker  in  Paris,  and  he  followed  with 
some  success  the  same  calling.  His  love  of  notoriety  was 
his  earliest,  as  it  continued  to  be  through  life  his  most 
striking,  characteristic.  He  called  upon  the  French  Acad 
emy  to  decide  whether  he  or  a  rival  workman  was  the  true 
inventor  of  an  escapement  for  a  watch ;  not  that  he  cared 
for  the  credit  of  the  invention  so  much  as  that  this  curious 


20  Beaumarchais 


appeal  would  cause  him  to  be  talked  about.  He  was  passion 
ately  fond  of  music,  and  had  special  skill  in  playing  the  harp, 
an  instrument  then  little  known  in  France.  He  became  the 
teacher  of  music  to  Mesdames,  as  the  four  unmarried  daugh 
ters  of  Louis  XV.  were  then  called,  and  by  his  skill  and 
pleasant  manners  soon  became  a  great  favorite  with  them. 
He  was  ambitious  of  advancement,  and  far  from  satisfied 
with  a  position  which  had  no  more  solid  recompense  to  give 
than  enabling  him  to  provide  gratuitously  for  the  royal 
amusement  An  office  to  him  had  no  value  unless  it  helped 
him  to  make  money.  For  the  nobility  of  the  day,  especially 
for  those  who  then  held  the  minor  offices  at  Court,  he  had  the 
utmost  contempt.  When  reproached  by  one  of  his  rivals 
with  being  a  parvenu,  and  not  a  noble,  he  repels  the  charge 
with  a  certain  mock  dignity  which  reminds  one  of  scenes  in 
Le  Manage  de  Figaro,  and  exclaims,  "  If  any  one  doubt  that 
I  am  a  noble,  let  me  tell  him  that  I  have  in  my  pocket  the 
receipt  for  the  money  I  paid  for  the  patent."  At  this  time 
he  had  purchased  the  office  of  Clerc  Controleur  de  la  douche 
de  sa  Alajeste  ;  in  other  words,  his  business  was  to  see  that 
his  Majesty's  dinner  was  properly  served,  a  dignified  posi 
tion  which  required  that  the  man  who  undertook  to  perform 
its  arduous  duties  should  be  a  nobleman.  But  in  the  strange 
way  in  which  things  were  then  done  at  the  French  Court  this 
office  could  be  made  use  of  as  a  lever  to  raise  him  from  the 
obscurity  of  his  position. 

In  1760  there  lived  in  France  a  famous  army  contractor, 
Paris  du  Verney  by  name.     He  was  one  of  three  brothers 


and  < '  The  Lost  Million. "  21 

who  had  gained  large  fortunes  by  furnishing  supplies  for  the 
public  service.  Gains  of  this  kind,  although  hardly  in  accord 
with  our  notions  of  the  civil  service,  were  then  regarded  both 
in  England  and  in  France  as  entirely  legitimate,  and  some  of 
the  largest  fortunes  in  both  countries  have  had  their  origin 
in  this  source.  This  Paris  du  Verney,  it  seems,  was  not 
satisfied  merely  with  accumulating  a  large  fortune.  He  de 
sired  to  be  remembered  by  posterity  as  a  public  benefactor 
rather  than  as  a  rich  man.  After  the  disasters  of  the  wars 
in  Germany,  where  every  one  but  himself  had  lost  in  repu 
tation  and  in  pocket,  he  conceived  the  plan  of  building  the 
Military  School  which  is  still  in  existence  in  the  Champs  de 
Mars.  After  spending  vast  sums  upon  the  building  and  in 
its  endowment,  he  found  that  the  school  languished  for  want 
of  royal  countenance  and  support,  Louis  XV.  being  selfishly 
indifferent  to  the  success  of  an  establishment  in  which  it  was 
proposed  to  educate  officers  for  his  service.  Even  Madame 
de  Pompadour,  who  was  a  friend  of  Du  Verney,  could  not 
stir  the  sluggish  blood  of  the  royal  voluptuary  so  far  as  to 
make  him  show  an  interest  in  this  noble  foundation.  Du 
Verney  then  had  recourse  to  Beaumarchais  in  his  quality  as 
teacher  of  the  royal  Princesses.  He  urged  him  to  induce 
these  ladies  to  visit  the  Military  School,  not  doubting  that 
their  visit  would  be  followed  by  that  of  their  father.  Beau 
marchais,  with  that  wonderful  sagacity  which  enabled  him 
always  keenly  to  scent  afar  off  the  path  of  self-advancement, 
and  who  saw  at  once  how  much  might  be  gained  by  the 
friendship  of  Du  Verney,  persuaded  the  Princesses  to  make 


2  2  Beaumarchais 


the  visit.  Of  course  they  were  greatly  delighted,  and  Louis 
XV.,  whose  one  really  good  trait  seems  to  have  been  a  sort 
of  good-natured  fondness  for  his  daughters,  followed  their 
example,  and  the  future  of  the  Military  School  was  thus  as 
sured.  Du  Verney's  professions  of  gratitude  to  Beaumarchais 
were  profuse,  and  if  that  gratitude  is  to  be  measured  by  the 
favors  which  he  showered  upon  him,  it  must  have  been  deep 
indeed.  He  recognized  his  aid  by  giving  him  what  Beau 
marchais  most  valued,  an  interest  in  the  profits  of  a  large 
contract  for  supplies  for  the  public  service,  lent  him  money 
for  speculations  by  which,  under  the  advice  of  Du  Verne}/, 
he  made  large  gains,  and  he  seems  to  have  been  ready  at 
all  times  to  advance  him  money  for  whatever  purpose  he 
needed.  This  was  the  stepping-stone  to  the  fortune  of 
Beaumarchais. 

We  next  hear  of  him  at  Madrid,  where  he  endeavors  to 
persuade  the  government  to  enter  into  a  contract  with  him 
for  supplying  the  Spanish  colonies  with  all  the  slaves  they 
might  need,  and  for  furnishing  the  Spanish  garrisons  in 
Europe  and  Africa  with  their  daily  rations,  an  operation 
which  would  have  required,  according  to  his  statement,  an 
expenditure  of  over  twenty  millions  of  francs  a  year.  How 
far  he  succeeded  in  entering  upon  these  contracts  does  not 
clearly  appear,  but  in  a  few  months  he  writes,  "  J'ai  deja 
perdu  trois  ou  quatre  fois  phis  que  je  n'ai  vaillant  au  monde  ; 
(tindignes  ennemis  ont  bar  re  man  chemin"  etc. 

The  next  step  in  his  life  which  brought  him  into  con 
spicuous  notoriety  was  his  quarrel  with  the  heirs  of  Paris 


and  ' '  The  Lost  Million. "  23 

du  Verney.  They  claimed  a  large  sum  as  due  from  Beau- 
marchais  to  the  estate  of  Du  Verney.  Beaumarchais,  on 
the  trial  of  this  question  before  the  Parlement  de  Paris,  pro 
duced  an  account  as  settled  between  himself  and  Du  Ver 
ney  in  his  lifetime,  in  which  Beaumarchais  appeared  as  a 
creditor,  and  not  as  a  debtor,  of  his  deceased  friend  and 
benefactor.  His  heirs  did  not  hesitate  to  attack  this  alleged 
account  as  spurious,  thereby  charging  Beaumarchais  with 
an  offence  which,  if  not  forgery,  closely  resembled  it.  On 
the  report  of  the  Judge,  Goezman,  to  whom,  according  to 
the  French  practice,  the  question  was  referred,  the  Court 
pronounced  that  the  heirs  of  Du  Verney  had  well-founded 
reasons  for  the  objection  they  had  made  to  the  account,  and 
Beaumarchais  was  accordingly  sentenced  to  the  punishment 
technically  called  blame,  which  involved  civil  degradation 
and  incapacity  to  hold  any  office.  Such  a  punishment  would 
have  completely  crushed  any  other  man,  but  in  the  case  of 
Beaumarchais  it  was  by  his  skill  and  adroitness  made  the 
means  of  his  further  advancement.  The  practice  then  was 
for  a  suitor  to  visit  privately  the  Judge  who  was  charged  by 
the  Court  to  report  upon  his  case,  and  to  endeavor  to  con 
vince  him  that  the  report  should  be  in  his  favor.  Beaumar 
chais  found  it  difficult  to  reach  the  Judge,  and  he  did  not 
hesitate  to  offer  the  wife  of  Goezman  one  hundred  louis  in 
money,  a  watch  of  equal  value,  and  an  extra  douceur  of 
fifteen  louis  if  she  would  secure  him  an  interview  with  her 
husband.  The  report,  as  we  have  seen,  was  unfavorable  to 
Beaumarchais,  whereupon,  after  a  few  days,  the  hundred 


24  Beaumarchais 


louis  and  the  watch  were,  according  to  agreement,  returned, 
but  the  fifteen  louis  were  retained,  or  rather  their  receipt 
was  positively  denied. 

Beaumarchais  at  once  determined  to  make  a  bold  stroke 
which  he  hoped  would  not  merely  destroy  the  Parlement 
Maupeou  and  its  Judges,  who  for  various  reasons  were  at 
that  time  excessively  unpopular  in  France,  but  would  call 
away  public  attention  from  his  punishment  and  turn  it  to  the 
iniquity  of  the  Parlement.  He  accordingly  presented  a  peti 
tion  to  the  Court,  in  which  he  alleged  that  Madame  Goe'z- 
man  retained  the  fifteen  louis  which  had  been  extorted  from 
him  as  a  bribe  to  secure  justice.  The  accusation  made  a 
prodigious  sensation  both  in  the  Court  and  in  the  public. 
Throughout  Europe  people  became  interested  in  the  ques 
tion,  which  involved  the  purity  of  the  French  administration 
of  justice.  The  excitement  was  kept  up  by  die  printing  of 
Memoires  on  both  sides,  according  to  the  French  practice, 
and  the  result  was  a  controversy  in  which  it  was  very  clear 
that  Beaumarchais  was  far  too  strong  for  his  opponents. 
Goezman  lost  his  place,  and  the  Parlement  Maupeou  was  a 
short  time  afterwards  abolished,  while  Beaumarchais,  from 
having  been  almost  a  convicted  forger,  was  now  looked 
upon  as  the  hero  of  the  hour,  and  became  the  most  popular 
man  in  Paris. 

We  have  told  this  story  at  some  length  because  it  illus 
trates  not  only  the  extraordinary  skill  and  adroitness  of 
Beaumarchais  in  getting  out  of  scrapes,  but  also  the  manner 
in  which  he  made  them  contribute  to  his  one  object  in  life, — 


and  "The  L ost  Million ."  25 

his  intense  desire  to  keep  the  public  eye  fixed  upon  himself. 
His  exploits  of  this  sort  excited  universal  attention.  Even 
the  King,  Louis  XV7".,  who  had  become  tired  of  hearing 
Beaumarchais  talked  about,  and  who  was  not  very  well  sat 
isfied  with  the  turn  his  affairs  had  taken,  began  to  think  that 
he  might  be  usefully  employed  in  a  very  delicate  negotiation. 
The  necessities  of  a  monarch,  like  those  of  other  mortals, 
know  no  law.  The  King  had  been  informed  that  a  certain 
French  adventurer  in  London  had  printed  and  was  about  to 
publish  a  Life  of  Madame  Dubarry,  in  which  the  special 
weaknesses  of  that  lady  were  to  be  exhibited  in  the  liveliest 
manner  for  the  amusement  of  the  scandal-loving  public. 
This  book,  of  course,  must  be  suppressed  at  all  hazards  and 
at  any  cost.  In  order  to  accomplish  what  was  certainly  not 
an  easy  object,  the  King  cast  his  eyes  upon  Beaumarchais 
as  having  proved  that  he  had  the  qualities  of  a  fit  agent 
for  such  a  purpose,  convict  and  degraded,  in  the  technical 
sense,  as  he  still  was.  Beaumarchais  readily  undertook  the 
mission,  went  to  London,  saw  the  libeller,  and  by  a  mixture 
of  diplomatic  shrewdness  and  the  use  of  money  he  secured 
the  whole  edition  of  the  book,  amounting  to  several  thousand 
copies,  and  burned  them.  On  his  return  in  triumph  to  Paris 
he  found  Louis  XV.  ill,  and  in  a  few  days  the  King  died. 
Beaumarchais  was  no  richer  for  the  expedition,  and  was 
still  under  the  judicial  sentence  of  blame.  This,  however,  did 
not  prevent  his  being  intrusted  with  a  second  expedition 
to  London,  where  Louis  XVI.  had  been  informed  that  a 
certain  Jew  was  about  publishing  scandalous  memoirs  of 


26  Beaumarchais 


Marie  Antoinette.  He  succeeded  in  procuring  this  man's 
silence  and  the  destruction  of  his  books  by  the  outlay  of  a 
large  sum  of  money.  But,  according  to  his  story,  some  of 
the  books  were  held  back,  and  with  them  the  libeller  had 
fled  to  Germany,  hoping  to  print  an  edition  there.  Beau 
marchais,  nothing  daunted,  pursued  him  to  that  country,  met 
with  a  remarkable  series  of  adventures,  and  finally  reached 
Vienna.  There  he  represented  to  Maria  Theresa,  the 
Empress  of  Germany,  and  mother  of  Marie  Antoinette, 
what  had  befallen  him;  and  so  absurd  did  his  story  appear 
that  he  was  kept  in  prison  in  Vienna  for  a  month  as  an 
impostor  or  a  madman,  and  then  sent  back  to  France. 

Notwithstanding  all  this,  Beaumarchais  seems  to  have 
still  retained  the  confidence  of  Louis  XVI.,  for  he  was 
shortly  afterwards  employed  to  obtain  from  that  mysterious 
personage  Le  Chevalier  d' Eon  in  London  certain  secret  state 
papers  of  importance  of  which  he  had  the  possession  and 
which  he  threatened  to  print.  Connected  with  this  mis 
sion  was  another  of  a  different  kind,  which  was  nothing  less 
than  an  attempt  to  induce  the  Chevalier,  by  the  payment  of 
a  large  sum  of  money,  to  return  to  France,  and  thencefor 
ward  to  appear  there  in  woman's  clothes  only.  It  is  strange 
that  a  maitre  passe  in  such  matters  like  Beaumarchais  should 
have  been  deceived  with  regard  to  the  sex  of  the  Chevalier ; 
all  the  more  strange  as  he  attempted  to  accomplish  his 
object  by  making  love  to  the  supposed  lady.  He  calls 
her  a  vieille  fille,  and  the  details  of  his  negotiations  on  this 
basis  are  more  amusing  than  edifying. 


and  "The  Lost  Million . "  27 

IV. 

This  was  the  man  and  such  were  his  antecedents  when 
M.  de  Vergennes  referred  Silas  Deane  to  Beaumarchais  as 
likely  to  aid  him  in  his  business  in  France.  In  the  spring 
of  1776,  when  Beaumarchais  was  notorious  in  London  for 
his  relations  with  D'Eon,  he  met  at  the  dinner-table  of 
Wilkes,  then  the  Lord  Mayor,  Mr.  Arthur  Lee,  the  secret 
agent  or  Deputy  of  Congress  in  Europe.  According  to  \ 
Mr.  Lee's  statement  to  Congress,  Beaumarchais  on  this 
occasion,  without  any  solicitation  on  Lee's  part,  offered  on  be 
half  of  the  French  government  to  send  Congress  two  hun 
dred  thousand  louis  d'or,  as  well  as  such  arms,  ammunition, 
and  other  military  stores  as  might  be  needed.  These  gifts 
he  proposed  should  be  transmitted  in  a  secret  manner,  so  as  / 
to  avoid  compromising  the  French  obligations  of  neutrality 
towards  Great  Britain.  In  order  to  accomplish  this  object, 
he  proposed  that  the  business  should  appear  to  be  a  simple 
commercial  transaction,  and  that  some  tobacco  or  other  pro 
duce  of  the  United  States  should  be  shipped  to  France  as  a 
pretext  of  payment.  It  is  right  to  say  that  Beaumarchais 
always  denied  that  he  had  ever  made  any  such  proposition 
to  Lee  on  behalf  of  the  French  government,  while  Lee  and 
his  brothers  (one  of  whom  was  the  celebrated  Richard  Henry 
Lee  of  Virginia,  who  moved  the  adoption  of  the  Declaration 
of  Independence)  always  insisted  in  Congress  that  such  had 
been  the  original  agreement. 

Be    that   as    it   may,   Beaumarchais   shortly  afterwards 


28  Beaumarchais 


returned  to  Paris,  where,  in  July,  1776,  he  met  Mr.  Deane, 
and  in  that  month,  having  convinced  the  agent  of  the  United 
States  of  his  ability  to  furnish  supplies,  an  agreement,  rather 
than  a  formal  contract,  was  made  between  them,  by  which 
cannon,  powder,  small-arms,  ammunition,  and  clothing  suffi 
cient  for  the  equipment  of  an  army  of  twenty-five  thousand 
men  were  to  be  sent  to  America.  Deane  proposed  that 
these  articles  should  be  paid  for,  not  in  money,  of  which  at 
that  time  the  United  States  had  none,  but  in  shipments 
of  tobacco  to  the  house  of  Roderigue  Hortalez  &  Co.,  the 
pseudonym  which  Beaumarchais  had  assumed  for  this  pur 
pose.  Deane,  however,  was  careful  to  point  out  that  these 
payments  could  not  be  depended  upon  with  any  regularity, 
as  the  American  ships  were  liable  to  be  captured,  and  other 
unforeseen  accidents  might  occur.  These  arrangements 
were  acquiesced  in  by  Beaumarchais,  and  the  shipments 
were  made  during  the  last  six  months  of  1776.  In  all,  eight 
cargoes  were  sent,  the  money  value  of  which  was  about  five 
millions  of  livres ;  their  value  to  the  American  Colonies,  as 
they  encouraged  them  to  persevere  and  placed  in  the  hands 
of  their  soldiers  the  arms  and  equipment  which  enabled  them 
to  gain  the  victories  of  the  campaigns  of  1777,  was  of  course 
simply  priceless.  Of  the  funds  which  enabled  Beaumarchais 
to  purchase  these  articles  it  now  appears  that  France  pro 
vided,  on  the  loth  of  June,  1776,  a  million  (a  sum  the  source, 
and  destination  of  which,  under  the  name  of  "  the  lost  million," 
France  and  the  United  States  disputed  about  for  more  than 
fifty  years),  and  Spain,  at  the  request  of  France,  about  the 


and  "The  Lost  Million."  29. 

same  time,  another  million.  It  seems  probable,  too,  that 
many  French  noblemen,  whose  names  were  purposely  con 
cealed,  embarked  in  what  they  considered  a  profitable  spec 
ulation  by  contributing  to  the  capital  of  Hortalez  &  Co. 
Whether  that  house  bought  the  powder,  as  Beaumarchais 
had  proposed  to  the  King,  from  the  royal  depots  at  from 
four  to  six  sols  a  pound  and  sold  it  to  the  Americans  at 
twenty  sols,  does  not  appear.  If  it  did,  and  anything  like 
such  a  profit  was  made  on  the  other  articles  sent,  it  did  not 
need  a  large  money  capital  to  conduct  its  business.  The 
Americans,  however,  do  not  seem  to  have  complained  of  the 
prices  charged  them  for  the  articles  sent,  for  the  supplies 
were  cheap  to  them  at  any  cost. 

The  greatest  difficulties  arose  in  the  shipment  of  these 
articles.  The  French  government  did  not  molest  the  agents 
of  Beaumarchais,  but  insisted,  for  its  own  safety,  on  the 
preservation  of  absolute  secrecy.  France  was  full  of  Eng 
lish  spies,  and  every  precaution  was  taken  by  the  govern 
ment  to  avoid  any  open  infraction  of  its  own  law  which 
prohibited  the  exportation  of  military  supplies  to  America. 
The  cannon,  the  arms,  and  the  powder  were  taken  from  the 
royal  arsenals  in  different  parts  of  the  kingdom,  and  thence 
conveyed  to  the  various  seaports  for  embarkation.  Two  or 
three  times  the  vessels  upon  which  they  were  laden  were 
stopped  on  the  complaint  of  the  English  Ambassador,  but 
they  all  at  last  got  to  sea,  and  reached  their  destination 
safely.  The  chief  obstacle  to  their  departure  was  interposed 
by  the  vanity  of  Beaumarchais  himself,  which  led  him  to 


30  Beaumarchais 


forget  that  in  an  enterprise  such  as  he  was  engaged  in,  in 
volving,  if  it  were  discovered,  the  danger  of  a  war  between 
France  and  England,  absolute  secrecy  was  indispensable. 
But  he  never  could  resist  the  temptation  of  making  himself 
notorious,  whatever  might  be  the  risk.  He  went  to  Havre, 
ostensibly  to  urge  the  departure  of  his  ships.  While  there, 
one  of  his  comedies  was  played  at  the  theatre  of  that  town, 
and  he  did  not  hesitate  to  make  his  appearance  in  public 
on  that  occasion.  The  result  was  that  the  suspicions  of 
the  English  spies  were  confirmed  by  his  presence,  and  his 
imprudent  conduct  had  wellnigh  shipwrecked  the  whole 
enterprise. 

The  French  government  was  so  anxious  to  conceal  its 
part  in  providing  these  supplies  that  it  at  first  tried  hard 
to  mislead  the  American  Commissioners  in  Paris  themselves 
-Dr.  Franklin,  Mr.  Deane,  and  Mr.  Arthur  Lee — as  to  the 
source  from  which  they  really  came.  When  this  was  found 
impossible,  the  French  Minister  insisted  that  what  was  re 
garded  as  a  state  secret  should  not  be  communicated  either 
to  Congress  or  to  its  Secret  Committee.  The  Commis 
sioners  very  properly  thought  that,  as  they  were  the  agents 
not  of  France,  but  of  the  United  States,  it  was  their  duty  to 
write  confidentially  to  the  Secret  Committee,  setting  forth 
all  the  information  they  had  on  the  subject.  This  letter  was 
written  in  October,  1777,  but  it  was  intercepted,  and  its 
duplicate  did  not  reach  the  Secret  Committee  until  the  close 
of  March,  1778.  In  it  the  Commissioners  speak  of  "the 
assurances  they  have  received  that  no  repayment  will  ever 


and  ' '  The  Lost  Million. ' ' 


be  required  from  us  for  what  has  been  already  given  us 
either  in  money  or  military  stores."  Meantime,  and  before 
the  arrival  of  this  letter,  Congress  had  made,  as  has  been 
already  explained,  a  partial  settlement  with  the  agent  of 
Beaumarchais,  and  had  entered  into  a  contract  with  him  for 
further  supplies.  This  contract,  however,  was  never  exe 
cuted,  our  treaty  of  alliance  with  France  of  February,  1778, 
rendering  any  further  concealment  or  dealing  with  third 
parties  unnecessary. 

Congress  was  much  perplexed  in  deciding  which  of  these 
stories  was  the  true  one,  that  of  their  Commissioners,  who 
told  them  that  no  payment  was  expected  for  these  supplies, 
because  they  were  due  to  the  generosity  of  the  King,  or 
that  of  the  agent  of  Beaumarchais,  supported  by  the  direct 
testimony  of  one  of  those  Commissioners,  Mr.  Deane,  who 
asserted  that  he  had  bought  the  articles  from  the  house  of 
Roderigue  Hortalez  &  Co.,  and  that  they  were  to  be  paid 
for  by  the  government  of  the  United  States.  They  directed 
their  Commissioners  in  Paris  to  make  direct  inquiry  of  the 
government  to  whom  and  for  how  much  they  were  indebted. 
M.  de  Vergennes  replied  that  the  King  had  furnished  noth 
ing,  that  he  had  merely  permitted  Beaumarchais  to  with 
draw  from  the  arsenals  certain  arms  and  powder  on  condition 
that  he  would  replace  them,  and  that  neither  the  King  nor 
himself  knew  anything  about  the  house  of  Hortalez  &  Co., 
or  how  far  it  could  be  depended  upon  to  fulfil  its  contracts. 
This  obvious  diplomatic  lie,  one  of  a  very  long  series,  did 
not  deceive  Congress;  but  of  course  it  was  out  of  the 


32  Bcaumarchais 


question  at  that  time   to  quarrel  with  France,  and  so  it 
submitted. 

Poor  Silas  Deane  was  made  the  scapegoat  in  this  in 
trigue.  He  was  ordered  home  from  France,  and  a  strong 
party  in  Congress  accused  him  of  having  employed  money 
given  by  the  King  as  "don  gratuit"  to  the  United  States  as 
the  basis  for  his  own  private  commercial  speculations.  Of 
course  there  was  no  ground  for  such  an  accusation,  but  the 
result  was  that  he  was  very  hardly  treated  at  the  time,  and 
that  he  has  never  received  since  the  full  credit  which  was 
due  to  him  for  his  agency  in  securing  military  equipments 
for  our  armies  in  the  darkest  days  of  the  Revolution. 


V. 

Meanwhile,  the  examination  of  Beaumarchais'  accounts 
went  slowly  on,  it  having  at  last  been  decided  that  he  was 
the  person  to  whom  we  were  really  indebted.  While  this 
matter  was  pending,  the  declaration  of  the  French  signers 
of  the  treaty  of  1781  that  three  millions  had  been  advanced 
to  the  Americans  gratuitously,  and  the  subsequent  expla 
nation  that  of  this  sum  one  million  had  been  paid  for  our 
use  on  the  tenth  of  June,  1776,  confirmed  the  Treasury  offi 
cials  in  their  opinion  that  Beaumarchais  had  received  this 
identical  sum  for  our  use,  and  had  expended  it  in  the  pur 
chase  of  supplies  sent  us,  with  the  cost  of  which  he,  by. his  ac 
count,  sought  now  to  charge  us.  Under  these  circumstances 
they  refused  to  settle  his  accounts  finally  until  he  should 


and  "  The  Lost  Million. ' ' 


33 


furnish  some  satisfactory  explanation  of  the  disposition  of 
this  million.  Beaumarchais  was  in  a  most  awkward  position. 
He  never  forgot  the  peculiar  danger  to  which  he  was  liable 
as  secret  agent.  If  he  did  not  tell  the  truth,  he  might  lose  his 
fortune;  if  he  did,  he  ran  great  risk  of  losing  his  liberty, 
and  possibly  his  life.  So  he  equivocated.  He  insisted,  of 
course,  that  he  was  suffering  great  wrong  and  injustice  from 
the  American  government,  and  he  protested  that  he  had  never 
received  a  penny  from  the  King  or  any  one  else  which  was 
intended  as  a  gift  to  us.  He  neither  admitted  nor  denied 
that  he  had  received  the  money  which  was  the  subject  of 
dispute.  His  answer  was  not  considered  satisfactory.  We 
claimed  that  as  this  million  had  been  given  to  us  we  suc 
ceeded  to  all  the  rights  which  the  donor  had  in  it  previous 
to  the  gift,  among  others  the  liability  of  the  receiver  to 
account  for  its  use  to  us,  especially  as  it  was  claimed  that 
in  some  secret  and  unexplained  way  it  had  been  used  for 
our  benefit.  The  whole  trouble,  it  should  be  borne  in  mind, 
arose  from  the  statement  of  the  French  government  itself 
in  1781  when,  unprompted,  it  declared  that  it  had  given 
us  three  millions,  whereas  it  was  afterwards  obliged  to 
admit  that  two  only  had  been  paid  to  our  Commissioners. 

Thus  matters  stood  until  1794,  when  a  new  light  was 
thrown  upon  the  subject.  France  by  this  time  had  become 
a  Republic.  Gouverneur  Morris  was  the  American  Min 
ister.  By  an  adroit  use  of  a  little  flattery  he  succeeded 
in  inducing  Buchot,  then  the  French  Minister  of  Foreign 
Relations,  to  institute  a  search  among  the  archives  of  the 


34 


Beaumarchais 


Ministry  for  the  receipt  that  was  given  to  the  French  govern 
ment  on  the  tenth  of  June,  1 776,  for  the  "  lost  million,"  telling 
him  in  the  high-flown  language  of  the  clay  (which  no  one 
knew  better  how  to  assume  than  Morris)  that  "mysteries 
serve  too  often  no  other  purpose  than  to  hide  dilapidations 
of  which  the  people  are  victims,"  and  saying  that  this  receipt 
was  needed  by  the  United  States  to  settle  their  accounts 
with  Beaumarchais.  The  following  receipt  was  shortly 
afterwards  produced  by  the  Minister,  and  a  copy  was  given 
to  Mr.  Morris  : 

"1776. 

"  I  have  received  from  Monsieur  du  Vergier,  agreeably 
to  the  orders  transmitted  to  him  by  Monsieur  the  Count 
of  Vergennes,  dated  the  5th  current,  the  sum  of  one  million, 
for  which  I  will  account  to  the  Count  de  Vergennes. 

"  CARON  DE  BEAUMARCHAIS. 

"  PARIS,  June  10,  1776. 

"  Good  for  one  million  of  livres  tournois" 

This  receipt,  of  course,  removed  the  last  doubt  as  to  the 
person  to  whom  the  money  was  paid,  and  it  did  much  to 
confirm  our  government  in  the  opinion  that  its  theory  of  the 
purpose  for  which  it  had  been  used  was  the  correct  one. 

Beaumarchais  died  in  1799,  after  enduring  hardships  and 
suffering  of  all  kinds,  perhaps  quite  as  great  as  those  under 
gone  by  any  man  who  escaped  the  guillotine  during  the 
Reign  of  Terror.  The  next  year  the  French  government 
took  up  his  claim  and  urged  its  payment.  Talleyrand  was 


and  ' '  The  Lost  Million. ' ' 


35 


Foreign  Minister  at  that  time,  and  he  was  under  peculiar 
obligations  to  Beaumarchais.  To  explain  this  it  is  necessary 
to  recall  the  disgraceful  proceedings  of  the  French  Directory 
in  1796,  when  the  Commissioners  whom  we  had  sent  to 
negotiate  a  treaty  with  France  were  given  plainly  to  under 
stand  by  the  members  of  the  Directory  that  no  treaty  could 
be  concluded  unless  they  were  paid  fifty  thousand  pounds, 
or  twelve  thousand  five  hundred  pounds  to  each  one  of 
them.  Talleyrand  was  a  member  of  the  Directory,  and  our 
Commissioners  of  course  refused  to  pay  a  farthing  for  any 
such  purpose.  Beaumarchais,  who  seems  always  to  have 
hovered  around  men  in  power,  and  whose  moral  sense  was 
so  obtuse  that  he  could  not  understand  the  scruples  of  the 
Commissioners,  believed,  or  affected  to  believe,  that  the  real 
obstacle  to  offering  this  bribe  was  a  want  of  ready  money. 
In  order,  therefore,  to  accommodate  Talleyrand,  as  well  as 
to  get  some  ready  money  for  himself,  of  which  at  that  time 
he  was  sorely  in  need,  he  proposed  that  if  the  State  of  Vir 
ginia,  against  whom  he  had  a  claim  for  one  hundred  and 
forty-five  thousand  pounds,  would  pay  him  without  delay, 
he  would  set  apart  fifty  thousand  pounds,  part  of  that 
sum,  for  the  purpose  of  bribing  the  Directors  to  conclude 
the  treaty.  This  attempted  intervention  of  Beaumarchais, 
by  which  he  hoped  to  be  of  service  to  the  United  States,  to 
fill  his  own  pockets,  and  to  provide  a  handsome  douceur  for 
his  friend  Talleyrand  all  at  one  stroke,  did  not  make,  when 
it  became  known  here,  an  impression  very  favorable  to  the 
honesty  of  his  methods  of  doing  business. 


36  Beaumarchais 


Under  these  circumstances  Talleyrand  instructed  M. 
Pichon,  the  French  Minister  here,  to  urge,  in  1801,  the  pay 
ment  of  the  claim  of  Beaumarchais  in  the  name  of  the 
French  government.  He  took  the  singular  ground  that 
there  was  a  distinction  to  be  made  between  a  political  agent 
and  a  commercial  agent,  and  that  the  "lost  million"  had 
been  paid  to  Beaumarchais  in  his  former  capacity  only.  This 
sort  of  reasoning,  as  we  may  suppose,  produced  little  or 
no  effect.  It  was  followed  up  in  1806  by  the  new  Minis 
ter,  General  Turreau,  in  a  series  of  elaborate  despatches, 
which  were  much  more  to  the  purpose,  and  carried  convic 
tion  to  the  minds  of  many.  He  relied  upon  four  new 
grounds  to  support  his  position,  and  made  an  effort  to  meet 
more  particularly  the  objections  which  had  been  made  to 
the  claim.  He  insisted,  ist,  that  the  money  had  been  given 
to  Beaumarchais  by  the  King  for  a  secret  political  purpose, 
and  that  this  purpose  was  a  mystere  de  cabinet,  which  the 
King  did  not  think  proper  to  reveal ;  2dly,  that  Beaumarchais 
had  promised  to  account  to  the  King  alone  for  the  use  he 
had  made  of  the  money ;  3dly,  that,  consequently,  he  was 
not  only  under  no  obligations  to  account  to  the  United  States, 
but  was  forbidden  by  his  position  as  secret  agent  to  do  so  ; 
and,  4thly,  that  the  money  paid  June  10,  1776,  had  never 
been  expended  in  the  purchase  of  military  supplies,  but  for 
another  purpose  (which  was  kept  secret),  of  benefit  to  us. 
The  subject  during  these  years,  and  for  many  years  there 
after,  was  referred  to  different  Committees  of  Congress, 
and  while  their  opinions,  as  has  been  stated,  differed,  their 


and  ' '  The  Lost  Million. "  37 

reports  are  all  marked  with  wonderful  fairness  and  a  spirit  of 
international  comity.  They  all,  without  exception,  recognize 
the  delicacy  of  the  position  in  which  the  French  government 
claimed  to  have  been  placed,  and  acknowledge  the  force  of 
its  declaration  that  it  could  not  disclose  the  truth  without 
compromising  the  honor  of  the  King. 

So  earnest  was  the  desire  of  our  government  to  pay  to 
Beaumarchais'  heirs  any  sum  which  it  could  be  proved  we 
really  owed  him,  that  in  1816  Mr.  Gallatin,  then  our  Minister 
to  France,  wrote  to  the  Due  de  Richelieu,  the  French  Foreign 
Minister,  that  if  his  government  would  give  us  a  formal  as 
surance  that  the  money  in  question  was  not  paid  nor  used 
for  the  purchase  of  military  supplies  for  us,  such  an  assurance 
would  doubtless  dispose  Congress  favorably  towards  the 
payment  of  his  claim.  The  Duke  replied  to  Mr.  Gallatin, 
"  I  am  warranted,  sir,  after  a  fresh  examination  of  the  facts, 
in  persisting  in  the  declarations  above  stated"  (that  is,  the 
previous  declarations  of  the  French  government  as  to  the  dis 
posal  of  the  "lost  million"),  "and  in  considering  as  a  matter 
of  certainty  that  the  million  paid  on  the  tenth  of  June  was  not 
applied  to  the  purchase  of  the  shipments  made  to  the  United 
States  at  that  period  by  M.  de  Beaumarchais."  Fortified 
by  this  letter,  M.  Hyde  de  Neuville,  the  Minister  here,  re 
turned  once  more  to  an  appeal  to  Congress,  and  although 
he  was  supported  by  the  reports  of  two  Committees,  one 
in  1823  and  the  other  in  1828,  recommending  the  payment 
of  the  claim  principally  upon  the  ground  of  the  faith  which 
ought  to  be  given  to  the  French  declaration,  there  was 


3  8  Beaumarchais 


always  found  an  invincible  repugnance  on  the  part  of  the 
majority  of  Congress  to  vote  money  for  that  purpose.  At 
last,  in  1835,  this  long  dispute  came  to  an  end  as  far  as  Con 
gress  was  concerned.  In  that  year  the  French  government 
paid  us  the  five  millions  of  dollars  which  by  the  treaty  of 
1831  it  had  agreed  to  pay  for  spoliations  of  our  commerce 
subsequent  to  the  year  1800.  Out  of  this  fund  the  heirs  of 
Beaumarchais  were  paid,  they  agreeing  to  abandon  their 
demand  of  one  million  livres,  receiving  eight  hundred  thou 
sand  francs  in  payment  of  other  claims  which  we  had  never 
disputed,  and  we  were  thereupon  released  from  all  further 
obligation  to  them. 

VI. 

Thus  the  matter  rested  until  the  year  1856,  when  M.  de 
Lomenie  published  his  work  "  Beaumarchais  et  son  Temps." 
In  the  mean  time  we  were  forced  to  rest  under  the  imputa 
tion,  not  only  in  the  judgment  of  foreign  powers,  but  also  in 
that  of  many  of  our  own  countrymen,  of  having  refused  to 
pay  a  large  portion  of  a  debt  contracted  by  us  in  the  pur 
chase  of  the  military  supplies  by  which  we  were  enabled  to 
achieve  our  independence.  M.  de  Lomenie  tells  us  that  he 
had  the  full  co-operation  of  the  family  of  Beaumarchais  in 
preparing  his  work.  He  relates  how  he  was  taken  by  one 
of  them  to  an  old  house  in  Rue  de  Pas  du  Mule,  where  the 
vast  mass  of  papers  left  by  Beaumarchais  was  gathered. 
They  filled,  he  says,  a  number  of  rooms,  were  covered  with 
dust,  and  were  piled  together  in  great  confusion.  They  had 


and  ' '  The  Lost  Million. ' ' 


39 


apparently  not  been  disturbed,  or  at  least  had  not  been  ex 
amined,  during  the  fifty  years  which  had  elapsed  since  Beau- 
marchais'  death.  With  no  small  difficulty  he  classified  and 
arranged  these  scattered  papers,  and  he  then  found  that  he 
had  abundant  material,  much  of  which  was  entirely  new,  to 
enable  him  to  tell  the  truth  about  the  many  stormy  episodes 
in  the  life  of  his  hero. 

Confining  ourselves  to  that  portion  of  these  papers  which 
referred  to  the  relations  of  Beaumarchais  with  the  United 
States  during  the  Revolution,  we  find  that  he  discovered  in 
them  abundant  evidence  to  prove  that  the  disputed  or  "  lost 
million,"  the  source  and  history  of  which  we  have  been  en 
deavoring  to  trace,  was  actually  paid  by  the  French  govern 
ment  to  Beaumarchais  on  the  loth  June,  1776,  that  it  was 
intended  by  that  government  solely  as  the  basis  of  a  subven 
tion  to  enable  Beaumarchais  to  purchase  supplies  and  for 
ward  them  to  us,  and  that  it  was  actually  so  employed.  In 
this  transaction  there  never  was  and  never  was  intended  to 
be  the  slightest  mystere  de  cabinet,  nor  any  suggestion  that 
the  money  was  to  be  used,  as  the  French  government  had 
so  long  maintained  in  its  dispute  with  us,  for  any  other 
"  secret  political  purpose"  than  the  purchase  of  arms  and 
military  equipments  for  our  use.  In  the  negotiations  with 
Beaumarchais  secrecy  of  course  had  been  enjoined,  but  its 
only  motive  was  stated  to  be  a  fear  lest  the  obligations  of 
French  neutrality  might  be  compromised  in  case  the  supply 
and  shipment  of  these  arms  should  be  discovered.  The 
French  government  said  to  Beaumarchais,  "  We  give  you 


40  Beaumarchais 


secretly  a  million.  We  will  endeavor  to  procure  from  the 
Court  of  Spain  another  million  for  the  same  purpose.  With 
these  two  millions,  and  the  co-operation  of  private  persons 
who  may  wish  to  become  partners  in  your  enterprise,  you 
will  establish  a  commercial  house,  and  at  your  own  risk  you 
will  furnish  the  United  States  with  arms,  munitions  of  war, 
clothing,  and  all  other  objects  which  may  be  necessary  to 
carry  on  the  war.  In  a  word,  it  is  necessary  that  the  busi 
ness  secretly  founded  (subventionee)  by  us  should  become 
thereafter  self-supporting."  In  point  of  fact  it  would  seem 
that  this  "  lost  million"  was  the  only  direct  subsidy  or  sub 
vention  which  Beaumarchais  ever  received  from  the  French 
treasury  in  money  during  the  year  1776  for  the  support  of 
his  operations  in  America.  He  had,  of  course,  by  its  order 
peculiar  privileges  and  peculiar  opportunities  for  making 
large  profits,  as  we  have  explained,  since  he  was  permitted 
to  withdraw  a  large  amount  of  the  supplies  from  the  royal 
arsenals. 

Beaumarchais  received  on  the  eleventh  of  August,  1776, 
from  the  Court  of  Spain  the  other  million  promised  by  De 
Vergennes.  It  reached  the  French  treasury  in  a  very 
roundabout  way,  in  order  to  conceal  from  the  English 
government  all  traces  from  whence  it  came  or  whither  it 
went.  If  any  other  proof  is  needed  of  the  origin  and  dis 
position  of  this  million,  it  is  found  in  two  letters,  one  from 
M.  de  Vergennes,  the  other  from  the  King.  In  the  first, 
dated  May  2,  1776,  the  Minister  writes  to  the  King,  "Sire, 
fat  r  honneur  de  mettre  aux  pieds  de  votre  Majeste  la  feuille 


and  "  The  Lost  Million. ' '  41 

qui  doit  iri autoriser  a  fournir  un  million  de  livres  pour  le 
service  des  colonies  anglaises"*  etc.  The  other  is  from  the 
King  of  France  to  the  King  of  Spain,  dated  January  8, 
1778.  After  speaking  of  the  liberty  which  had  been  given 
both  to  the  English  and  to  their  rebellious  Colonies  to  trade 
with  France,  notwithstanding  the  war,  the  King  says,  " De 
cette  maniere  r  Amerique  sest  pourvue  d'armes  et  de  mitnitions 
dont  elle  manquait ;  je  ne  parle  pas  des  sec  ours  d  argent,  et 
autres  que  nous  leur  avons  donnes,  le  tout  etant  passe  sur  le 
compte  de  commerce  "-\  etc. 

In  all  these  accounts  of  the  transactions  of  Beaumarchais 
with  the  French  government  there  is  not,  as  I  have  said, 
the  slightest  hint  that  the  money  paid  him  on  the  tenth  of 
June,  1776,  was  ever  used  for  any  other  purpose  than  that 
contended  for  by  the  majority  of  the  American  Congress, 
viz.,  the  purchase  of  military  stores  for  us.  It  follows  as  a 
matter  of  course  that  both  Beaumarchais  and  the  French 
government  must  always  have  been  fully  aware  that  such 
was  the  true  state  of  the  case,  and  that  Beaumarchais  had 
actually  been  paid  by  France  the  very  money  which  he 
claimed  from  us.  It  is  difficult  to  refrain  from  characterizing 
as  it  deserves  the  conduct  of  the  French  government  in  this 
business,  while  it  had  in  its  possession  the  best  evidence  that 
the  claim  it  was  urging  upon  us  was  unfounded.  The  at 
tempt  on  its  part  to  show  after  the  discovery  of  1794  that 
although  the  money  had  really  been  paid  to  Beaumarchais, 

*  De  Flassan,  Histoire  de  la  Diplomatic  frangaise.  f  Ibid. 


42  Beaumarchais 


yet  it  was  not  proper  to  give  us  any  account  of  its  dis 
posal  because  it  was  secret  du  roi,  and  that  the  money  had 
been  used  for  some  other  "  secret  political  purpose"  for  our 
benefit,  and,  further,  that  the  motive  for  such  a  disposal  could 
not  be  inquired  into,  because  it  was  myslere  de  cabinet, — all 
these  were  diplomatic  subterfuges,  or,  to  speak  more  plainly, 
absolute  falsehoods. 

If  we  had  not  discovered  by  accident  that  France  had 
ostentatiously  declared  in  1781  that  it  had  given  us  three 
millions  instead  of  the  two  which  we  had  actually  received,  and 
had  not  been  thus  set  upon  inquiry,  doubtless  this  fraud  of 
Beaumarchais',  aided  by  his  government,  would  have  been 
successful.  This  boastful  blunder  in  the  treaty  of  1781  came 
back  to  plague  its  inventors  many  times  during  the  succeed 
ing  half-century.  It  certainly  gave  rise  to  more  diplomatic 
falsehood  and  deception  than  any  international  question  we 
have  ever  had  to  discuss.  From  the  beginning  to  the  end 
the  conduct  of  the  French  ofovernment  seems  uncandid  and 

o 

disingenuous  to  the  last  degree.  When  M.  Grand,  the 
banker  of  the  American  government  in  Paris,  at  its  sugges 
tion,  asked  M.  de  Vergennes  to  whom  the  money  had  been 
paid,  the  Minister,  it  will  be  remembered,  refused  to  give  his 
name.  The  reason  now  appears  for  the  first  time  in  this 
book  of  M.  de  Lomenie.  In  the  confidential  correspond 
ence  between  the  Minister  and  the  chief  of  the  money 
department  of  the  foreign  office  now  brought  to  light,  it 
seems  that  the  name  of  Beaumarchais  was  not  given  up  lest 
the  disclosure  might  prejudice  him  in  the  settlement  of  his 


and  ' ( The  Lost  Million. ' '  43 

accounts  with  the  United  States,  both  he  and  the  French 
Minister  being  then  perfectly  aware  that  one  item  of  that 
account  was  a  charge  against  the  United  States  of  a  million 
which  had  already  been  paid  him  by  France.  The  truth  is, 
sad  to  say,  that  the  attempt  to  extort  this  money  from  us  was 
based  throughout  all  these  long  negotiations  upon  false  pre 
tences.  When  the  question,  in  1816,  seemed  to  be  narrowed 
down  to  one  point,  viz.,  whether  France  would  explicitly 
declare  that  the  said  million  was  not  applied  to  the  purchase 
of  the  supplies  furnished  by  M.  de  Beaumarchais  to  the 
United  States,  and  the  Due  de  Richelieu,  then  Foreign  Min 
ister,  declared  positively  that  the  said  million  was  not  so 
applied,  the  Minister  was  treading  in  the  footsteps  of  his 
predecessors,  and  making,  like  all  of  them,  false  statements. 
As  M.  de  Lomenie  says,  "  Cela  rietait  ex.ict,  qu' officielle- 
ment"  leaving  us  to  imagine  what  language  could  be  em 
ployed  to  make  a  denial  more  general  or  positive. 

It  must  not  be  forgotten  that  a  good  deal  of  the  distrust 
felt  by  public  men  in  this  country  of  the  declarations  of  the 
French  government  was  created  by  the  experience  they 
had  already  had  in  their  dealings  with  the  agents  of  his 
Christian  Majesty.  Thus,  Dr.  Franklin  relates  in  one  of  his 
letters  that  at  an  interview  which  was  held  in  1782  between 
M.  de  Vergennes  and  Mr.  Grenville  (at  which  he  was 
present)  in  which  the  basis  for  negotiations  for  peace  was 
discussed,  Mr.  Grenville,  in  the  course  of  conversation, 
remarked  "that  the  war  had  been  provoked  by  the  en 
couragement  given  by  France  to  the  Americans  to  revolt. 


44  Beaumarchais 


Whereupon  the  French  Minister  grew  warm,  and  declared 
that  the  breach  was  made  and  independence  declared  by 
the  Americans  long  before  they  received  the  least  encour 
agement  from  France,  and  he  defied  the  world  to  prove  it." 
(See  Pitkin's  History  of  the  United  States,  vol.  i.  p.  421.) 
And  all  this,  be  it  remembered,  in  the  presence  of  Franklin, 
who  had  himself,  as  Commissioner,  received  two  millions  of 
this  same  secret  service  money,  the  existence  of  which  was 
so  strenuously  denied  by  the  Minister.  We  may  imagine 
the  "calm  and  serene  sage"  keeping  silence,  but  probably 
thinking,  as  John  Adams  did  on  a  similar  occasion,  "that 
human  nature  was  curiously  constituted." 

Our  government,  therefore,  notwithstanding  the  many 
reasons  we  had  to  be  grateful  for  the  assistance  which  was 
sent  to  us  from  France,  and  our  anxious  desire  to  pay  hon 
estly  for  all  that  had  been  received,  was  often  perplexed  by 
the  tortuous  policy  pursued  by  that  power,  and  at  a  loss 
what  course  to  take.  At  one  time,  1778,  we  were  told  that 
the  French  government  had  furnished  nothing,  and  that 
Beaumarchais  alone  was  to  be  paid  for  the  supplies ;  at  an 
other,  1781,  that  government  informs  us  that  it  makes  us  a 
present,  to  the  extent  of  one  million,  of  the  supplies  which 
it  had  previously  told  us  that  it  did  not  furnish.  No  wonder 
that  we  looked  upon  all  the  representations  which  came  from 
France  on  this  subject  as  tainted  with  suspicion.  And  the 
subsequent  developments  seem  to  me  to  show  that  we  were 
quite  right  in  doing  so. 

But  it  will  be  asked,  How  could  the  French  government, 


and  "The  Lost  Million."  45 

with  a  full  knowledge  of  all  the  circumstances  which  have 
been  related,  urge  with  such  persistence  upon  the  American 
government  the  payment  of  a  million  which  had  been  pre 
viously  paid  by  itself?  M.  de  Lomenie,  who  evidently  thinks 
that  Beaumarchais  was  very  harshly  treated  by  the  United 
States,  but  whose  book  furnishes  the  best  evidence  which 
has  yet  appeared  why  he  should  not  have  been  paid,  persists 
in  maintaining  that,  notwithstanding  all  this,  Beaumarchais 
was  a  genuine  creditor  of  this  country.  He  arrives  at  this 
conclusion  in  the  following  way.  He  insists,  first,  that  Beau 
marchais  when  he  signed  the  receipt  of  June  10,  1776,  prom 
ised  only  to  account  to  the  King,  and  not  to  us ;  and,  sec 
ondly,  that  as  Beaumarchais  had  been  a  great  loser  in  his 
dealings  with  us,  we  should  pay  him  for  his  losses. 

In  regard  to  the  first  point,  it  is  probably  true  that  he 
did  account  to  the  King  satisfactorily  for  the  use  and  dis 
posal  of  the  million,  for  the  Treasury  order  in  regard  to  the 
reimbursement  of  the  funds  paid  to  Beaumarchais  has  been 
produced,  and  it  is  marked  in  the  royal  handwriting  with  the 
word  "Bon"  that,  it  seems,  being  the  method  adopted  by 
the  King  to  express  his  approval  of  secret  disbursements  of 
money.  But  certainly  it  is  manifest  that,  although  this  pro 
ceeding  may  have  settled  the  account  between  the  French 
government  and  Beaumarchais,  it  could  in  no  way  affect  his 
claim  upon  us,  or  our  liability  to  him.  It  is  a  universal  but 
very  elementary  principle  of  law,  that  when  a  man  is  in 
trusted  with  money  by  one  person  for  the  use  and  benefit 
of  another,  he  owes  a  double  duty.  He  must  account  not 


46  Beaumarchais 


only  to  the  giver  but  to  the  receiver  also.  This  is  put  in  a 
very  clear  light  by  Mr.  Gallatin,  Secretary  of  the  Treasury, 
in  a  letter  dated  January  27,  1806,  to  the  Chairman  of  the 
Committee  on  Claims.  He  says, — 

"It  is  evident  that  if  he  was  rightfully  charged  by  the 
United  States  with  the  sum  in  question,  it  is  to  them  and 
not  to  the  French  government  that  he  is  accountable.  The 

o 

solemn  declaration  that  that  million  was  a  gratuitous  gift  to 
the  United  States  seems  inconsistent  with  the  supposition 
that  it  was  not  applied  as  an  aid  and  subsidy,  but  given 
without  their  consent  and  knowledge  to  an  individual  re 
sponsible  for  the  application,  not  to  the  government  who  had 
received  but  to  that  who  gave  the  subsidy.  And  that  answer, 
so  far  as  relates  to  the  French  government,  appears  con 
clusive." 

In  regard  to  the  second  point,  M.  de  Lomenie  does  not 
seem  to  stand  upon  any  firmer  ground  when  he  argues  that 
we  should  have  allowed  the  payment  of  the  million,  because 
Beaumarchais  had  suffered  great  losses  in  his  dealings  with 
us,  and  therefore  we  should  have  reimbursed  him  for  those 
losses.  At  the  close  of  the  war  it  is  said  that  he  had  be 
come  very  poor  through  zeal  in  our  service,  and  that  it 
would  have  been  a  graceful  and  a  generous  act  on  our  part 
had  we  not  permitted  him  to  suffer.  As  to  his  poverty,  we 
may  say  that  this  book  of  M.  de  Lomenie  furnishes  the  best 
evidence  that  he  was  no  poorer  at  the  close  of  the  American 
war  than  he  had  been  at  the  beginning.  A  statement  is 
given  of  his  accounts,  from  which  it  appears  that  in  1783  he 


and  "The  Lost  Million." 


47 


was  worth  at  least  forty-eight  thousand  francs  more  than  he 
was  in  1776,  the  difference  of  course  being  due  to  his  deal 
ings  with  us.  But  his  poverty  or  even  his  losses  have  noth 
ing  whatever  to  do  with  the  rightfulness  of  the  particular 
claim  he  made  upon  us.  If,  indeed,  his  zeal  or  his  gener 
osity  in  our  service  had  led  him  so  far  as  to  involve  serious 
losses  on  his  part,  although  the  whole  affair  was  a  mere 
commercial  speculation  with  its  inevitable  risks,  no  one 
who  knows  the  American  people  or  their  history  can  doubt 
that  a  claim  upon  us  based  upon  such  grounds  would  have 
received  a  favorable  consideration.  But  Beaumarchais  made 
no  such  claim,  and  he  attempted  to  do  what  any  vulgar  ad 
venturer  might  have  done.  He  simply  overcharged  us, 
trusting  that  he  would  not  be  discovered.  He  made  no 
appeal  ad  misericordiam  even  when  reduced  to  the  ex- 
tremest  poverty  in  Hamburg  in  1794,  but  insisted  that  his 
claim  was  s trie tissimi  juris,  and,  as  such,  ought  to  be  paid  in 
full  at  once. 

The  author  of  his  life  tells  us  that  he  was  compensated 
for  his  losses  in  the  French  service,  and  therefore  should 
have  been  treated  in  the  same  way  by  us.  He  refers  es 
pecially  to  the  injury  which  was  done  to  one  of  his  armed 
vessels  while  convoying  a  large  number  of  ships  (either 
belonging  to  him  or  laden  with  his  cargoes),  in  an  engage 
ment  with  the  English  fleet,  under  Admiral  Byron,  off  the 
island  of  Grenada  in  1779.  It  seems  that  his  ship,  Le  fier 
Roderique,  with  its  convoy,  was  cruising  off  this  island  on  the 
eve  of  the  battle,  and  that  the  French  admiral  D'Estaing 


48  Beaumarchais 


insisted  that  it  should  take  part  in  the  fight.  The  result  was 
that  Le  fier  Roderique  was  much  injured,  her  captain  killed, 
the  convoy  dispersed,  and  some  of  the  vessels  captured. 
For  his  losses  the  French  government  paid  him  in  1784- 
i  786  two  millions  of  francs.  But  is  there  anything  in  his 
services  to  us  resembling  this  ?  and  can  we  doubt  that  if 
there  had  been,  and  a  claim  for  reimbursement  and  indem 
nity  had  been  made,  it  would  have  been  cheerfully  paid, 
although  we  had  not  as  the  French  government  under  the 
Bourbons  always  had,  the  ever-present  consciousness  that 
while  it  was  dealing  with  an  ordinary  merchant,  like  Beau 
marchais,  the  man  who  would  enforce  his  claim  in  case 
of  need  was  the  author  of  the  "Mariage  de  Figaro'  ? 
Possibly  the  remembrance  of  the  power  that  personage  had 
shown  in  his  conflict  with  the  Parlement  Maupeou,  and  the 
fear  of  what  he  might  be  able  to  do  with  a  feeble  ministry 
if  tempted,  were  not  without  their  influence  in  determining 
M.  de  Vergennes  to  support  him  in  maintaining  a  claim 
which  none  better  than  he  knew  was  without  any  foundation 
in  right  or  justice. 


From  the  account  we  have  given  of  the  manner  in  which 
military  supplies  were  furnished  us  by  the  French  govern 
ment,  and  by  its  agent  Beaumarchais,  we  can  gain  some 
idea  of  the  nature  and  extent  of  the  aid  and  succor  which 
we  received  from  them  both  during  the  Revolution.  From 
France  we  received  three  millions  of  livres  (including  in  it 


and  "The  Lost  Million."  49 

the  disputed  million  paid  to  Beaumarchais  for  our  use)  pre 
vious  to  the  treaty  of  1778,  and  six  millions  of  livres  in 
1781,  in  all  nine  millions  of  livres,  or  about  one  million  eight 
hundred  thousand  dollars,  and  from  Beaumarchais  supplies 
valued  at  about  five  millions  of  livres,  all  of  which  (except 
those  for  which  he  wrongfully  charged  us  one  million)  were 
duly  paid  for.  We  cannot  too  often  express  our  opinion 
that  this  French  aid  was  of  inestimable  value  to  us  during 
the  war,  and  we  can  never  be  too  thankful  for  it.  But  in 
our  thankfulness  we  must  not  forget  that  this  succor  was  in 
no  sense  disinterested,  either  on  the  part  of  France  or  that 
of  Beaumarchais.  There  is  a  common  impression  in  France, 
and  perhaps  to  a  certain  extent  in  this  country,  that  we 
owed  the  possibility  of  maintaining  our  independence  to 
French  intervention  and  succor.  In  a  certain  sense  this 
may  be  true,  but  in  considering  the  action  of  France  we 
may  ask,  What  material  advantages  did  she  gain  by  spending 
less  than  two  millions  of  dollars,  and  declaring  war  against 
England,  as  methods  of  helping  us  ?  We  must  remember 
that  her  interest  in  our  quarrel  was  solely  the  opportunity 
it  gave  her  of  humiliating  her  hereditary  enemy,  of  recon 
quering  the  prestige  which  she  had  lost  as  a  military  power 
by  the  treaty  of  1763,  and  especially  of  securing  for  herself 
the  benefit  of  that  commerce  from  which_she  was  excluded 
as  long  as  we  were  English  colonies.  In  each  of  these 
cherished  hopes  France  was  signally  successful.  The  terri 
ble  humiliations  of  national  pride  from  which  she  had  suf 
fered  by  the  provisions  of  the  treaty  of  1763,  owing  to  the 


Beaumarchais 


loss  of  her  possessions  in  the  East  and  West  Indies  and  of 
Canada,  were- amply  avenged  when,  in  1783,  the  brightest 
jewel  in  the  British  Crown — the  American  Colonies — was 
rudely  torn  from  it.  At  that  time  it  was  the  universal  opin 
ion  both  in  England  and  France,  and  indeed  it  was  openly 
proclaimed  in  the  House  of  Commons,  that  the  sun  of  Eng 
land's  glory  had  set  forever,  and  France  rejoiced  over  her 
downfall  with  a  savage  joy  which  knew  no  bounds.  But 
while  her  revenge  was  gratified  by  the  recognition  on  the 
part  of  England  of  the  independence  of  the  United  States, 
vast  substantial  advantages  soon  accrued  to  her.  Her 
power,  her  influence,  and  her  wealth  were  all  enormously 
increased  by  our  independence.  With  the  birth  of  the 
United  States  as  a  nation  a  new  continent  was  opened  to 
French  commercial  enterprise.  What  that  commerce  may 
have  been  worth  to  her  during  the  century  which  she  has 
freely  enjoyed  it  cannot  be  told  here,  but  no  one  can  doubt 
that  it  was  cheaply  purchased  by  the  payment  of  less  than 
two  millions  of  dollars  and  a  war  of  five  years  against  our 
common  enemy. 

It  is  possible,  therefore,  to  overrate  the  disinterestedness 
of  France  in  regard  to  the  succors  furnished  by  her  during 
the  Revolution.  There  was  (and  let  it  never  be  forgotten) 
but  one  disinterested  Frenchman  who  served  us  during  that 
war,  and  that  was  the  Marquis  de  Lafayette.  He  made  the 
American  cause  his  own,  because  he  believed  it  to  be  that 
of  liberty  and  human  rights.  He  fought  for  us  not  because 
he  hated  England  as  an  enemy  to  France,  but  because  he 


and  * '  The  Lost  Million. ' ' 


was  moved  by  the  same  principle  which  governed  Wash 
ington  and  his  companions.  He  alone,  of  all  the  foreigners 
in  our  army,  clamored  for  no  recognition  of  his  services, 
and  asked  for  no  pay.  The  conduct  of  Lafayette  had  many 
admirers  among  his  countrymen,  but  no  imitators. 


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